Armenian Turkish “Start-up Weekend” in IT Sphere

YEREVAN — More than 30 Turkish businessmen have arrived in Armenia to discuss the perspectives of cooperation in the field of Information and Communication Technologies. Entrepreneurs, programmers, designers, sales experts from both countries held a roundtable discussion today.

Tomorrow they will participate in a “Star-up Weekend” event, which will continue in Gyumri on November 8-9.

The Startup-Weekend is implemented by the Public Journalism Club (PJC, Armenia) and the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV, Turkey) within the framework of the “Support to the Armenia-Turkey Normalisation Process” programme financed by the European Union.

During this weekend-long, hands-on experience established and aspiring entrepreneurs from Armenia and Turkey will come together to share ideas, form teams, launch startup projects, build products, demo prototypes and find out if those projects are viable.

Today the Armenian specialists briefed their Turkish counterparts on the achievements and perspectives of development of the ICT in Armenia.

“I didn’t believe so many people would be interested in participating in the event. This is a new opportunity in the reconciliation efforts,” US Ambassador to Armenia John Heffern said.

“The information and communication technologies sector is a well chosen platform for the settlement of the Armenian-Turkish relations. It is important to show that the nations of these two countries have more similarities than differences”. Ambassador Heffern stated.

According to him, the “first track” diplomacy sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t. This initiative is a “second track” diplomacy, i.e. contacts between societies, private enterpreneurs and this initiative may become a good opportunity for the two countries to begin partner relations.